6 June 2024 snippets of lengthy article.
Justin Alexander Shetler, from Oregon, mysteriously vanished in 'Valley of Death' 8 years ago and his family are still searching for answers. The case is being explored in the podcast Status: Untraced
www.dailymail.co.uk
'So this week I retired,' he told followers. 'And I'm in the process of selling everything I own, save a Royal Enfield motorcycle, my computer, phone, a change of clothes, a passport, toiletries and credit card, which all fit into a backpack smaller than a school bag.'
Appearing on a podcast before his disappearance, Justin explained how he was able to retire at such a young age.
'In 2009, a friend and I started a technology company,' he explained. 'Did anti-counterfeiting, tracking and marketing for luxury goods.''
''Justin told friends and family that he'd met Satya Nairyawan Rwad, a Baba, which means a holy man, who invited him on a trek into the mountains, to a sacred ground. He was last seen on September 3, 2016, when he posed for a snap with hikers.''
After this somehow Justin and the Baba becamse separated. Satya and a porter, who also joined them on the trip to carry essentials, returned without the 35-year-old, but they never reported him missing.
It wasn't until Justin's mother, Susie Reeb, flew to the Parvati to report her son missing that the Baba was detained and interrogated, however he took his own life while in custody.
It was reported that police found the man hanging and tried to resuscitate him without success.''
'While in India, Jonathan managed to find out that the reputation of the Baba Justin had signed up for the trek with was far from what you'd expect of a spiritual leader.
Lenox said: 'He was a fake holy man. He went to stealing from all the different camps, and, had a serious drug habit.'
Just a few days later, the porter Anil Kumar, who was on the spiritual hike with Justin and the Baba, was placed under formal arrest and was held on suspicion of foul play.
However, he was later released without charge.
To this day, Justin's mother wholeheartedly believes the porter and the Baba murdered her son on the hike.''
Jul 17, 2024
The Book Review
'Harley Rustad’s new book, “Lost in the Valley of Death,” (
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/21/bo...) is about an American adventurer named Justin Alexander Shetler, who went on a quest in the Himalayas that ended in his disappearance. One of Shetler’s heroes was Christopher McCandless, whose story was told in Jon Krakauer’s “Into the Wild.” On this week’s podcast, Rustad discusses Shetler’s life, including his use of social media and how that dovetailed — and didn’t — with his spiritual journey.“He was a very good-looking guy. He’s somebody that could be potentially quite easy to roll your eyes at and write off. There are a fair amount of shirtless selfies on his Instagram account,” Rustad says. But that curated image, the author says, doesn’t necessarily reflect the full truth. Rustad continues: “I think there was something that he was deeply trying to search for. And his social media accounts, while they gave him a platform to potentially inspire people — something that he really, really longed for and struggled with was solitude. And right now it’s almost impossible to achieve that true solitude in this world of deep, profound connectivity. And so as much as he validated and found value in that platform, it also was impossible; it created this barrier for him to achieve something pure.”
www.independent.co.uk
